Lin Fan wandered aimlessly through Qing City alone, and before he knew it, he had reached a rather desolate area.
This was the old district. It had already been slated for demolition, and many of the buildings had become dangerous structures. Almost everyone had already moved away.
As he walked down the street, Lin Fan, feeling rather unsettled, suddenly sensed something strange. He abruptly looked up and saw two people standing on the roof of a condemned building.
They were too far away for Lin Fan to make out clearly. Suddenly, one of them, a woman, jumped from the roof.
The building was eight stories high. The woman was dressed in a red qipao, and with a heavy thud, she hit the ground. Fortunately, there were not many people on the streets in this area.
A short while later, the woman actually slowly rose to her feet.
Lin Fan hurriedly slipped into a small alley and looked toward the woman.
“A demon person?” Lin Fan’s pupils constricted slightly.
Lin Fan had rarely encountered demon people. This world did not have only demons. There were also people who refused to cultivate the righteous path and transformed themselves into half-human, half-demon beings in order to gain power.
Lin Fan’s heart tightened. He held his breath. Demon people were generally organized, and in a certain sense, they were even more difficult to deal with than powerful solitary demons.
A strongly built man also jumped down from the roof and landed steadily on the ground.
Lin Fan saw them clearly. This female demon person was a first-grade illusion spirit.
Demons and demon people corresponded to laymen, Daoists, and perfected practitioners as illusion spirits, shapeshifters, and true demons.
An illusion spirit was a demon that had developed intelligence and could cultivate, but was unable to take human form. Only after reaching the shapeshifter stage could a demon truly assume human form. By that point, a demon’s strength was already terrifying.
As for true demons, they were already powerful enough to dominate an entire region.
These two demon people were only at the illusion spirit stage, but because they had transformed from humans into demons, they were able to appear in human form.
Lin Fan had not expected two illusion spirit demon people to suddenly appear. What was more, the male demon person was a third-grade illusion spirit!
“You still haven’t finished the task I gave you. You know the rules of our organization.” The male demon person spoke coldly. “The souls of five men. If you still haven’t collected them within a month, don’t blame me for being ruthless.”
“Yes.” The female demon person lowered her head, her brows drawn tightly together.
“Hmph.”
The male demon person slowly turned around. Suddenly, he looked toward the direction where Lin Fan was hiding. His pupils turned yellow, and he quickly walked toward the alley where Lin Fan was concealed.
When he reached the alley, however, he found it completely empty, without a thing in sight. “Could it have been a hallucination?”
After saying that, he and the female demon person quickly left.
Only after the two demon people had gone did Lin Fan crawl out from behind a trash can.
“Looks like Qing City is going to be anything but peaceful lately.” Lin Fan shook his head slightly. It was not that he was afraid of those two demon people.
Even without using the Sword Control Technique, he could easily deal with both of them using Quanzhen Sect’s Daoist magic.
Although the male demon person was a third-grade illusion spirit, putting him at the same level as Lin Fan.
Lin Fan’s cultivation technique was simply too formidable.
Not to mention Shu Mountain’s Sword Control Technique, Quanzhen Sect was also one of the foremost orthodox sects in existence.
The reason Lin Fan had not attacked the two demon people was that killing them would likely attract even more demon people.
With his current strength, Lin Fan absolutely could not afford to provoke an organization like that lightly.
“I wonder when I’ll be able to reach the first-grade Daoist stage.” Lin Fan stretched lazily. To deal with an organization like that, one had to be at least a Daoist.
Encountering the two demon people had dispelled much of Lin Fan’s earlier confusion.
At that moment, his phone rang again.
“Hello?” Lin Fan answered the call. It was Du Shengxiao.
Du Shengxiao said from the other end, “Mr. Lin, are you free right now? My grandfather would like to invite you to dinner.”
Lin Fan glanced up. “It’s so late. You mean right now?”
“Yes.” Du Shengxiao continued, “You’re at Huang Zhongshi’s home, right? I’ll send someone to pick you up.”
“No, I’m over by the old streets in the western district,” Lin Fan said.
It was not strange that the Du family knew about Huang Zhongshi. Lin Fan had only one maternal aunt, and Huang Zhongshi also worked for one of the Du family’s companies.
If they had not even investigated that much, it would have seemed rather insincere.
Before long, a Mercedes-Maybach slowly pulled up beside Lin Fan.
The driver was Du Yu, and Du Zhengguo was seated in the back.
“Du Shengxiao didn’t come?” Lin Fan asked as he opened the door and got in. A trace of awkwardness appeared on Du Zhengguo’s face, and he chuckled. “I need Mr. Lin to take care of something for us. He’s just a child, so there was no need for him to come along.”
“Did I agree to that?” Lin Fan shot Du Zhengguo a glance, displeasure evident in his voice.
Du Zhengguo had nothing to say. After all, the Du family’s previous actions had indeed gone too far, so it was only natural for Lin Fan to be angry.
“All right. I imagine Du Shengxiao has already told you about what happened today. I said that I owed him for taking that kick, and I intend to repay the debt.” Lin Fan asked, “What do you need help with?”
Lin Fan had agreed solely because Du Shengxiao had taken a kick from Lai Xiaolong that day.
Du Zhengguo did not answer directly. Instead, he said, “I’ve heard about what happened today. I also called Qiye, but he refused to agree to a reconciliation. Of course, I didn’t reveal your identity to him.”
Lin Fan clearly did not want to expose the fact that he was a layman. He nodded after hearing this. “I’ll find a way to deal with that myself later. For now, tell me what you need help with.”
Du Yu spoke up. “It’s like this. Some time ago, our Du family developed a piece of barren land. They say it used to be a mass burial ground, but the price was relatively cheap.”
“And then you built buildings on it?” Lin Fan asked lazily, leaning back in the car.
Developers did things like that quite often. After all, places that had once been mass burial grounds were indeed considerably cheaper.
Du Yu nodded. “After construction began, accidents started happening every few days. We couldn’t figure out why.”
Lin Fan sat up. “How long has this been going on?”
“Half a year. The construction site has been shut down for six months now, and we’re losing a large sum of money every day.” Du Zhengguo’s face twitched slightly. Clearly, the losses were causing him some pain.
Lin Fan said, “In all this time, you haven’t looked for anyone else to examine the place?”
Du Zhengguo said slowly, “Of course we have. The geomancer who originally chose the site said it was a place where a dragon was hidden, with excellent feng shui. Even if it had once been a mass burial ground, it couldn’t overwhelm the feng shui of the site.”
Lin Fan said, “Take me there first. I’ll have a look before we discuss anything else.”
Du Yu, seated in the front, said, “Another expert will be going as well. He’s a master from the Liu family whom we invited.”
“There’s someone else?” Lin Fan asked, puzzled.
Fearing that Lin Fan might misunderstand, Du Zhengguo explained, “Please don’t take it the wrong way, Mr. Lin. We thought you wouldn’t agree so easily, which was why we invited someone from the Liu family to come and take a look.”